1- Assessment Data

Throughout this course, we have examined western civilization’s tendency to broaden individual rights.  This trend has produced modern western societies with more robust political and economic freedom when compared to Europe in 1200 A.D. 

However, commentators like David Brooks of the NYT express concern that western society’s focus on expanding individual freedom has yielded unintended consequences that manifest in a deterioration of social cohesion.  For example, Brooks notes that western society increasingly suffers from: sharp increases in people reporting loneliness, depression, and in rising suicide rates.  Moreover, Brooks laments that many western nations are experiencing a decline in marriage rates and falling trust in institutions.

Is Brooks right to attribute these statistics to the excesses of western individualism?  Why or why not?

Here is a link to a talk Brooks gave at Davidson College where he made some of the arguments I’m referencing:

https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=10156123122347052&_rdr

2- Road to Wigan Pier Critical Analysis Paper

For our second critical analysis paper, you have two options to pick from.  

1. The Industrial Revolution is thought to have improved the material standard of living for most people in Britain (by lowering the cost of basic staples like food and clothing) when compared to pre-industrial Britain when most people worked in agriculture and made the majority of the products they used themselves often at great cost in terms of time and labor.

       In lowering the cost of basic products through more efficient mass production, the Industrial Revolution also created a life for workers both inside and outside the mills and factories that Orwell describes in his book as miserable.

      Given the tradeoffs inherent in industrial production, take a position where you argue either for or against (or for a some balance between the two) economic development that raises material standard of living (by lowering cost of living) but does so through work that some find dehumanizing.

2. In the first chapter, Orwell described the meals provided by the Brookers to their lodgers. These meals were non-nutritious and in no way sated a man’s hunger. How is this nutritional issue and the role of the Brookers as caregivers to their renters symbolic of other themes in his book, such as how the intellectual class see the country’s need for Socialism to improve the life of the poor?